Yea it is good & I agree it's nice to see MJ happy. I think he said in Moonwalk he was only really happy on stage and/or performing.

Like Bandit mentioned I'm getting Prince vibes from the song too. Wouldn't be out of place on the Graffiti Bridge soundtrack. I think if it were released back in like 88 or 89 it would have been a bigger hit. It only reached like 74 on the Billboard charts which is a shame.

Big Boss Man wrote:Yea it is good & I agree it's nice to see MJ happy. I think he said in Moonwalk he was only really happy on stage and/or performing.

Like Bandit mentioned I'm getting Prince vibes from the song too. Wouldn't be out of place on the Graffiti Bridge soundtrack. I think if it were released back in like 88 or 89 it would have been a bigger hit. It only reached like 74 on the Billboard charts which is a shame.

1993 wasn't a good year for either of them. Janet was a bigger star than Michael and this was Distinguished Gentleman and Beverly Hills Cop III era Eddie, so the public wasn't interested in either of them at this point. But they both made comebacks in 1995.

Mike was still a huge deal internationally, I believe he was coming off the Dangerous Tour in 1993. I think him waiting so long between albums was costly since he could have come out with one in like 84 but that was arguably Princes year to shine. That MJ was still making predominantly R&B based music alienated him a little to the pure Rock audience. Prince appealed to those fans too. His first two albums were straight up R&B (although Bambi was a sign of things to come) then he transitioned into more a Rock/New Wave sound. So say Michael came out in 84 or 85 with an album, then followed that up in 86/87 (Bads a great album but not a classic IMO like Off the Wall or Thriller and followed trends instead of setting them) and brought out Dangerous in 89/90 he'd be ahead of the curve and be constantly setting trends. He could have predates what Puff was doing with Hip Hop Soul and really the Teddy Riley produced tracks are that, especially say if Heavy D or whomever dropped a verse on Remember the Time. So internationally Mike was still a big deal but he waited too long between albums. He was a perfectionist so that's likely why. But I'm sure all the top producers and writers wanted to work with him. A MJ and Jam & Lewis collaboration before Scream would have been cool. But I guess he was loyal to Quincy whereas he should have sought out the producers of the today sooner.

Yeah, internationally he never fell off, even with the scandal. But in the US people kind of got sick of Dangerous by spring 1992 and were more into the next generation of Boyz II Men, Jodeci, Mary J Blige, TLC, PM Dawn, En Vogue, etc. Like In The Closet was the biggest single from Dangerous in 1992, but on the End of the Year chart was only the 66th biggest single of the year, and Jam didn't chart on the year end (it only hit #26 when it was new.)

It's not that Dangerous wasn't good, the feeling was just he was THE defining star of the 1980s, and people wanted to be done with the 80s and have new music stars. Madonna and Prince had the same problem. The 90s were kind of rough commercially for Prince (although a lot of that has to do with the record label problems) and Madonna didn't have anything that ranked as big as her 80s stuff until Ray of Light in 1998. Every decade has a turnover in pop stars, but the 90s dumping the 80s was may have been the biggest. So it wasn't his fault, it was just how people felt.

Bandit wrote:Yeah, internationally he never fell off, even with the scandal. But in the US people kind of got sick of Dangerous by spring 1992 and were more into the next generation of Boyz II Men, Jodeci, Mary J Blige, TLC, PM Dawn, En Vogue, etc. Like In The Closet was the biggest single from Dangerous in 1992, but on the End of the Year chart was only the 66th biggest single of the year, and Jam didn't chart on the year end (it only hit #26 when it was new.)

Yea I think Mike waited too long to drop Dangerous. Sony we're going to have a greatest hits package called "Decade" with I believe "Come Together" but usually they put out greatest hits as a last hurrah for an artist leaving a label (interestingly David Geffen wanted to sign MJ to Geffen Records) or a way to make a quick buck. But he went with Dangerous instead and Decade turned to HIStory with a new album added. Michael was ahead of the curve but by then R&B had evolved and he was following trends instead of setting them. Arguably that started with Bad. I think Quincys Back on the Block is what MJ should have aimed for with hip hop artists and making his music more urban.

It's not that Dangerous wasn't good, the feeling was just he was THE defining star of the 1980s, and people wanted to be done with the 80s and have new music stars. Madonna and Prince had the same problem. The 90s were kind of rough commercially for Prince (although a lot of that has to do with the record label problems) and Madonna didn't have anything that ranked as big as her 80s stuff until Ray of Light in 1998. Every decade has a turnover in pop stars, but the 90s dumping the 80s was may have been the biggest. So it wasn't his fault, it was just how people felt.

Yea that's true. Prince had a fairly good start to the 90s with D&P and the Love Symbol album. It was WB playing hardball with him which caused him to go independent. That paid off because "Most Beautiful Girl in the World" was a smash hit and his only UK #1. But he kinda flew under the radar. Emancipation in 96 had a few hits off it and got him back into the public eye a bit. He signed to Arista in 99 and "Greatest Romance" charted in the U.K. if I'm correct.

MJ of course had that scandal to deal with so there was a 4 year gap before HIStory. Some of the tracks from that were hits, Earth Song a U.K. #1. Then there was Blood on the Dancefloor. I think the remixes were just filler and he could have expanded more with the newer tracks. I think that would have been better as an E.P. "Ghosts", "Superfly Sister" (apparently recorded in 1991) are I think underrated songs in his discography. Then you didn't get a new album did Invincible in 2001. Had MJ put out more records (Prince in comparison had Graffiti Bridge, D&P, Love Symbol, Hits & BSides, Gold Experience, The Black Album, Chaos & Disorder, Emancipation, New Power Soul, The Vault Old Friends 4 Sale, Crystal Ball, The Truth & Kamasutra, The War EP with Larry Graham, 2 albums with the NPG, 1-800-New Funk, 1999 The New Masters EP (might be a couple more I forgot) so there was a ton of product out there.

MJ had 3 albums so that's a huge difference. I don't think one every year is too much, but one every two years keeps you in the public eye & a presence on the charts. MJ was touring for Dangerous & HIStory but he needed BOTD to be stronger and maybe used songs which turned up on the box set. He could have went with a horror type concept album and called it Ghosts instead.

For Madonna, she constantly evolves. She had a big hit with "Don't cry for me Argentina" and the Evita movie. She had quite a notable presence still in the 90s and I think a lot of her songs during that time were hits or at least charted. She worked with Babyface on one of her albums too.

Unbelievable and sad she's the last one standing so to speak. I think she has more a niche fan base now like what Prince had but I think she could have a return to form in the limelight if she worked with the right producer(s). Madonnas almost an omnipresent thread running through popular music since the 1980s. Prince and MJ were too but because Madonna had her finger on the pulse more she was a step ahead of them. That they were all interconnected too is real interesting. Prince worked with Madonna in the late 80s and MJ in the early 90s. In the Closet was to be a duet with Madonna.

Sadly MJ was on the verge of a big comeback with This is It and Prince was on the road to one too so we won't ever know how things would have panned out. This is it could have been huge and the record sales boom he had post humously could have happened whilst alive. Prince needed that one new mega hit to remind folks how great he was and he'd have got his master tales back soon so there'd no doubt be a big promotional push behind those.

But really an artist needs to evolve to stay relevant especially today. How colour by numbers artists like Ed Sheeran stay relevant is intriguing. He is almost the anti-thesis of a traditional pop star. He's much more a Everyman and maybe that's his appeal to looks like a guy you'd see in the street. What sets Mike, P and Madonna apart is they are superstars and looked like one. Their whole image and personas were almost other wordly. There was secrecy attached to them too where you only knew what their PR wanted you to know.

Now artists are more open books which is why there's no real superstar artists with mystique. Ow. I can't see any new Jimi, Jim Morrison, David Bowie, Freddie, MJ, Prince, Madonna (well you have Lady Gaga) to name a few the real iconic artists of the time. You'll have imitators (like Gaga) but back then they were real unique and again almost other worldly. I can't name anyone now who is in the same league or who have the same mystique.

I think Quincys Back on the Block is what MJ should have aimed for with hip hop artists and making his music more urban.

Quincy said in his autobiography he wanted Run DMC to do an anti-cocaine song with Michael on Bad, but Michael was cold to the idea of working with them, and they'd made a comment in the press that Michael was too sheltered to write a song about drugs destroying the black community anyway, so they didn't care that he wasn't interested in them. But he came around to hip hop in the early 90s. He may have been like Prince where he was a little afraid of it because it could overshadow him, but upon seeing that hip hop and R&B can co-exist and both be popular came around to it.

Yea I heard that too. Both sort of embraced hip hop in the mid 90s though. Prince had Doug E Fresh on his Emancipation tour and he had Tony M rapping in the NPG back in the early 90s. James Brown was ahead of the curve really because he worked with Afrika Bambatta in the early to mid 80s, plus he's probably the most sampled artist in hip hop history.

I also think MJ was more hip to hip hop because he had Teddy Riley produce Dangerous instead of Q. New Jack Swing was the amalgamation of hip hop beats and soulful singing. Remember the Time is probably the closest to that genre on Dangerous though. MJ mixed in the rock, pop (Heal the World), more straight up R&B, gospel (Will you be there) etc. I think had Dangerous be more New Jack Swing it could have alienated a portion of his fan base. He was smart that Thriller had Beat It the rock track with Eddie Van Halen as it brings over that audience.